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Chapter X The Pakehas meet a Collector of curios and learn how to work in the colonies

The following day we had to decide where to go next. From the hints of our Maori hosts we guessed that Taranaki was not very peaceful, the tribes there hastening to join the rebellion even more eagerly than their brothers on our side of the Island. We could not reach New Plymouth and the white settlements around it without crossing Maori land unless we took the long route through Napier, the capital of the Hawke's Bay province, and from there by steamer. This was a proposition we could not even consider. It was quite beyond our financial means.

My advice was to make a detour to the flat and fertile province of Hawke's Bay, closely settled by Scottish farmers and still calm. We could earn some extra money there. My companion was dead against this plan.

‘How can you think about earning money when we're within three days' march of the most spectacular volcano on this Island, and hardly half a day from one of the most interesting lakes in the world?’

‘Remember that we haven't much money. The mountains and lakes won't fade away if we don't see them directly. Such a trip could cost a lot. We can't afford it. Even in New Zealand it's not easy to live without money.’

‘We won't find much in Hawke's Bay. You know very well that I must be in New Plymouth on the day the European mail arrives there. I'll be in a position then to pay back what I owe you and sail away to Europe.’

‘Do we have to idle away our time until you receive your money?’

‘I don't call admiring the wonders of Nature idling, particularly when they're actually on our way.’

‘But what happens if the money you are expecting doesn't materialize?’

‘It will. My high and mighty friends send it regularly enough, even if they do it contemptuously, like giving alms every Friday.’

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‘Suppose it fails to reach you?’

‘In that case I'll have to find a job.’

‘We may not be able to find a job later on. It seems reckless to fritter time while you wait for your remittance.’

‘And your ideas seem incredibly greedy to me. No doubt you'd argue that one has to make a modest start, that even a few wretched pounds may be the first feathers to line a comfortable colonial nest. It's true enough that many men have begun to accumulate their snug fortunes in that way, but it's not my way. I took myself to the New World thinking by that single gesture to win my independence from the people on whom I depend. I tried all kinds of speculations, but eventually came to the conclusion that the colonials are craftier than us new chums. My business losses convinced me that I'd be better off at Home.’

‘What would you do supposing you learnt about some risky venture which promised enormous returns before you left for Home?’

‘I'd plunge right into it and stake all my possessions all over again. I know of plenty of nobodies who became men of substance overnight, simply because they forgot their scruples. I'd do the same. I'd disregard minor ethical principles and make my swoop. It's an operation which seems to come easily to people in this country. I've only been losing because of my stupid scruples.’

‘I can see you're thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the lower classes of local society. You stick to it …. It might come in handy one day,’ I said ironically.

‘Sooner or later it will spread across the ocean. My colonial schooling will be pretty helpful.’ My friend spoke as if he foresaw a day when the New World's shameless pursuit of money at any cost would extend to Europe.

The outcome of our discussion was a resolution to cross the so-called New Zealand Iceland, where the natives were still behaving themselves, to find temporary work in Wellington, if that was possible, and sail from there to New Plymouth. We would thus avoid the stormy regions along the upper Wanganui River and in North Taranaki.

We needed a guide for the journey through the volcanic centre of the Island. We met a young Maori who advised us to go to the Mission at Temu, by Lake Tarawera. A guide who often worked for the English and knew their language lived there. We would find him in the mission shop which was owned by an old man who had been there for many years. We found the little shop next to a picturesque chapel and a neat looking rectory, and in it we discovered the old page 112 shopkeeper. He collected Maori curios, especially dried and smoked human heads. The natives used to preserve the heads of their vanquished enemies, rather as the Red Indians preserve scalps. These had formerly been the objects of an extensive trade. In Sydney, and even England, collectors of such horrors apparently abounded. A few relics still lay on shelves behind the counter, cheek by jowl with family Bibles and household goods such as cheese and butter. When we entered the shop the old man was dusting the heads with obvious delight. Their coppery hue had acquired a true metallic sheen and their dreadful teeth glared at us as though they were coated with silver.

‘Good morning,’ said my friend to the shopkeeper.

‘Good morning. I'll be with you in a moment, just a moment. I have to clean up Taraio, He deserves it, for he was a great chief in his lifetime. Who would ever have thought,’ he went on, soliloquizing like Hamlet over Yorick's skull, ‘that one day he would end up on my shelf? Once he gave orders for me to be thrown into an oven, and I would surely have roasted there and been eaten up too if another tribe had not attacked him and saved me. Three days later I smoked his head. But I respect him, I do really. I have had him in store for the last twenty years because of the high price I've put on him. He was a great chief, so his head is expensive. He was the first to introduce firearms to this part of the Island, murdering and plundering right up to the day he was treacherously killed. His kainga housed the most savage tribe in the whole Island.’

‘Did he live here?’ I asked.

‘No, in a village on the far side of the lake, where you can see the tall white fence of another mission. He had a famous fortress there, surrounded by a twenty-foot high palisade and a deep ditch. Since he died there's been no need for defences like those. The pacified local tribes no longer fight. They seldom declare war, and when they do it's always as the pakeha's allies.’

‘How has that come about?’

‘It's the Reverend MacCulloch's doing. From the very day he settled here the native's altered their ways entirely. It has been a slow business, but progress is clear. Today, our villages contain blacksmiths, carpenters, even shipwrights, who go to Auckland to make their living. As soon as the minister explained to them that earning money from the white people was better than fighting them, the Maoris began to act as he advised. Until that day the pakehas had kept bothering them with the new religion, and deceiving them too, which was why the killings of white people continued.’

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‘So the damnable love of money, as Virgil called it,’ I remarked to my friend, ‘if it's sensibly directed, can act as a greater incentive to work than sermons and parables.’

‘I've known that for years,’ retorted my materialist companion.

The shopkeeper ignored our interruptions and talked on, meanwhile combing and plaiting the long black locks of the deceased Taraio.

‘The Reverend MacCulloch is a good neighbour and a wise man. If only he'd stop getting at me for my trade in smoked heads I'd have no quarrel with him. He almost ruined my business during our early acquaintance. The converted Maoris would no longer supply me with fresh merchandise. But I'd managed to store enough before they were converted to last for a while. Don't be surprised that my prices are ten times what they were ten years ago: it's because I've received no fresh supplies for so long. These goods improve in quality like old wine.’

‘How much do you want for Taraio?’

‘Twenty-five pounds for such a brave chief. Even the minister is interested in this head, and has stopped pestering me to give it a decent Christian burial.’

‘How long has your minister been here?’

‘Almost as long as I have. He's a clever man all right, sir. He's never bothered the Maoris with demands for a contribution towards the upkeep of his church. He had a bit of money on his own and could manage without their help. He even made them gifts. Now they'd give him everything they have but he doesn't need it. He's broken in large tracts of farmland and has plenty of livestock. He certainly knew how to civilize these savages. He left the old people alone, and didn't preach against their immoral customs. He even bought their goodwill with presents. He persuaded the young people to visit him and taught them to appreciate a well-cooked meal and comfortable clothes. He showed them how to use various European chattels and above all how to earn money and obtain such things for themselves. The younger generation did not stay lazy like their fathers. Even the chief's son went to school in Auckland and now serves on a whaler. I've heard that his ship is back in Auckland and that he'll soon be home. The whole village eagerly awaits his arrival. You see the old chief has died and the people don't want to elect a new one from some other family. The last surviving descendant of the ancient chiefs is our Te Ti.’

‘Te Ti?’ I exclaimed.

‘Yes, George Te Ti. Do you know him, sir?’

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‘I have heard of him. I met someone who knew him.’

‘A man Williams, by any chance? That was a damnable business. Te Ti made up his mind to have a half-caste girl for his wife. He wasted his time dangling after her, following her across the mountains. At last, in despair, he went to sea.’

Preferring to change the subject, I asked: ‘May I see the minister?’

‘No, he left yesterday to take his daughter and her husband to Wellington. If you follow the mountain road you may catch up with him. He's travelling by bullock cart which is a slow business.’

‘We want to cross the mountains, and we're making for Wellington. This route is apparently still safe. The road to New Plymouth is menaced by the rebels.’

‘Yes, indeed …’ and he suddenly stopped. He had finished smartening up Taraio. ‘Well, isn't he pretty?’ he asked. He shoved the grinning parchment-like skull under my nose. It stared at me from black, cavernous eye sockets. I pushed away the horrid atrocity, which he no doubt hoped to sell me because I had asked its price.

‘Don't be so uncivil to Taraio,’ reprimanded the shopkeeper. ‘If you intend to go by the mountain road you'll have his best friend as your guide.’

‘How's that?’

‘The one who cut off his head and sold it to me, old Tamimana. In the old days he delivered heads to my museum. In these changed times he supplies me with volcanic rocks and strangely shaped shells. See, he gathers all these with his own hands…. Won't you buy something?’

‘No thanks. We haven't enough money to waste any on your curios. We dropped in to buy biscuits, sugar, and tea for our journey, and to ask about the guide. We were told we should find him in your shop.’

‘That's right. Go to sleep,’ (these last words were addressed to the head of Taraio) ‘there's still no buyer for you.’ He sighed. ‘I don't understand the change in the tourists’ tastes. Twenty years ago I never had enough heads to satisfy the demand, though the Maoris cheerfully killed each other to support my blossoming trade. Now these heads clutter up my shelves for ten years and no one pays any attention to them. The young generation is only interested in rocks and shells.’

It was quite a job to move the old rattle to fetch the guide. When at last we succeeded we hired the former agent for the trade in human heads to lead us through the most romantic part of the country. The agreed fee of two pounds was also to cover the fish and meat he page 115 would procure with his flshing rod and rifle during our journey. Considering that we would be five or six days on the road we made not a bad bargain. We had in one person and for one fee both a guide and a provider of food.

To clinch the deal in proper form we bought some liquor from the trader in human heads, who sold it to us only on condition that we kept quiet about it.

‘If the minister knew I stocked brandy he would incite the Maoris to expel me for good. I only sell it to my friends, and never more than a glass apiece. They're all total abstainers in our kainga except for old Tamimana who is an incurable drunkard. I keep liquor for him, and for the sick.’

‘Don't you get bored living in this isolated place among a lot of temperance fanatics?’

‘No, sir. I've got used to them and look on them as my children. What is there in the world for me to miss?’

‘I've been told that you have a tidy pile of money tucked away. Wouldn't you like to see the outside world and spend some of it?’

‘The world ruined me once, before I came here, and I don't care a rap for it. Generally speaking, only those who have experienced nothing but dirt and squalor in so-called civilized countries complain about the lack of comfort here, like the Irish and Germans who at home lived on potatoes and now fulminate against colonial cooking. A man who's seen a great deal of the world and enjoyed himself in society can easily bear isolation and discomfort. When he remembers that he chose them for himself, he won't grumble.’

The strange hermit, playing the role of a latter-day Diogenes, wished to keep us longer, but Tamimana reminded us that we must move on if we were to cross the lake that night. Having parted from the old shopkeeper, we got into a bark canoe which our guide speedily propelled forward. We had to be very circumspect in our movements for fear of upsetting the balance of the boat. An hour's journey brought us to the far side of the lake where we landed in the region known as the Iceland of New Zealand.

A full account of all the curiosities found in this part of the Island would take up too much of my story. The main features of Iceland and Yellowstone are repeated here, often on as grandiose a scale. Moreover they are all crowded into a small area. From Lake Tarawera to lofty Mount Tongariro is a distance of no more than seventy English miles. In this small region are to be found the local versions of Vesuvius with its adjoining Somma, the domes of Auvergne's extinct volcanoes, the pointed summits of the Andes, and Icelandic page 116 or North American geysers. Far from being just miniature replicas of American or European wonders, these are their full-sized copies, scattered about in a limited space as though Nature wished to create a geological museum under these glorious skies and among this tropical vegetation. The two factors combine to make a visit to this natural exhibition exceedingly pleasant. Here are basalt formations so recent that they cover Maori villages. Water changes their composition into soft clay. A river flowing through Lake Taupo, the source of the superb Waikato, fills it with pumice and lumps of lava from nearby volcanic slopes. Soon the river will fill it entirely, changing the lake into land. Boiling geysers erupt by the lake shores. Their steaming floods pour into its cold waters, so that Maoris and tourists alike may enjoy cold or warm baths, and even do their cooking within an area of no more than two acres. These boiling waters are saturated with silica. They cover anything immersed in them with fine stalactites and leave a rippled snow-white surface on the lake bottom. Maori canoes often vanish in this steamy water, too hot for human hands to touch. Paths between the lakes lead through a countryside where each rift emits steam, which emerges from beneath the earth's surface with a noise like a steam engine. The white-capped, awe-inspiring giant Ruapehu broods over these wonders with all the earnestness befitting the highest peak of the North Island. It is ten thousand feet in height, and shares its guardianship with the almost equally lofty Tongariro, which spouts a smoky fountain into the blue sky and serves as a signpost to lost travellers.

We often sat near boiling geysers, which were so cooled by the fresh lake waters that the young Maoris were able to swim and splash about in them. There we listened to our old guide's stories of precolonial days. Tamimana also had passed through the common Maori school of sea service, and had spent many years aboard a whaler. The Maoris' strength and boldness were valued so highly by American and Australian skippers that during the whale oil boom, before the discovery of the North American oilfields knocked the bottom out of the market, half their crews were recruited on the North Island. Thus many Maoris acquired the white man's habits, learnt to speak English, and—unfortunately—adopted the ugliest European vices. Consequently, it is hard to find a sober man amongst these former seamen, but easy to meet one who understands English.

Our guide's stories often referred to native customs which were already dying out. We questioned him painstakingly about these. Our acquaintance with the Maoris had given us little notion of cannibalism, of tapu, by which certain objects were made sacred with the touch page 117 of a chief's hands, of the drying of human heads as trophies for sale to English tourists (who carried them away as tangible proof of their stay in New Zealand), of polygamy, of the atrocious custom whereby women smothered their new-born infants so that they would be unencumbered in their work or during frequent flights from an enemy, of maiming one's own body in grief at the death of a loved one, of killing the widows at the graves of their warrior husbands, even of tattooing. The cruelties of primitive life had either disappeared for good, or had, as it were, gone underground. More edifying practices, the poetic recitation of ancestral deeds, greeting by pressing noses, the rhythmic and plaintive narrations of injuries suffered since the last meeting, were retained, but only under special conditions. Occasionally, however, when the Maoris were strongly roused, their remaining savage instincts would rise to the surface in brutal excess. They would cut off the head of the bravest enemy killed in a skirmish, or tear out his heart and share it among the warriors of the tribe so that all might inherit the dead man's valour. Since only a few such cases were proved during my sojourn in the North Island, we may assume that the majority of the Maoris are averse to these relics of the past. Moreover, most were committed by members of a fanatical religious movement known as ‘Hau Hau’. Sentimentalists who persist in complaining about the pernicious influence exerted by the European settlers on primitive peoples would do well to remember that the worst vices which the Europeans introduce do not in the least compare with the horrors to which even such a noble people as the Maoris shamelessly adhered. It was the living example of the Caucasian race which showed them how revolting these were. The drunkenness and debauchery of today are but minor defects by comparison with those of the past.

The sixth day after hiring our guide we released him from our service. In another day he would leave us on the surfaced road which led to Wellington through relatively calm country. According to our calculations, we had by-passed the place where Tikera's father probably lived, and were now approaching the country populated by rich white sheepfarmers, amongst whom I hoped to restore my impaired finances. Except for the draft in New Plymouth we had very little money left.

Fish we got free from the streams. Our meat diet, also free, consisted of small Maori hens, a sort of partridge which could not fly or even run fast, and wild pigs. Potatoes and other local vegetables we bought for next to nothing. But there are a thousand and one ways of spending money while travelling. It vanishes from one's page 118 pockets like quicksilver through a sieve. My travels have taught me that even in the middle of Equatorial Africa, where shells are used as currency, or in the deserts of Central Australia, inhabited only by kangaroos, one's money is constantly diminished by the natural law according to which it must pass from one person to another.

We struck camp near the source of a south-flowing river. The gigantic black chain of Tongariro with its spurs of sky-blue mountains lay between us and the north, climbing heavenwards and throwing long shadows on to the eastern valleys, while the higher slopes still gleamed in the rays of the setting sun, which before it vanishes lit up the forests and mountain peaks with orange and crimson flames. To the right of our bivouac the rocks rose in such complicated piles that it was difficult to believe that they were natural, the result of mighty earth movements. We were surrounded by brown Gothic cathedrals with bolder arches than those of the Middle Ages, geometrically perfect grey pyramids, rust coloured domes, and lumps of livid lava twisted in strange shapes like huge stony flowers. Here and there above this basalt garden rose a bunchy fir tree, bearded and moustachioed with moss, like a solemn sentinel guarding a stately mansion.

We made camp in a meadow strewn with broken basalt columns and watered by a brook which flowed rapidly from the dark blue and rusty rocks. Light green grasses, long, but so scattered that their strands looked like embroidery against the dark background of the brown stones, grew on this plain.

According to our guide a white spirit lived here. All the monsters of the coloured races have our complexion, and their satans are also pale-faced. This spirit carried away any Maoris who strayed into its domain. Once upon a time some warrior had sanctified the spot by his tapu; that is, he had made it sacrosanct. The ghost would seize every passer-by who encroached on this inviolate ground. The curse endured until a direct descendant of the great chief removed the tapu from the enchanted grove.

By the time our guide had finished his fairy tale, dark night had fallen. The fire was dying out for lack of fuel. In the deep sky a procession of stars twinkled wanly, for there was no moon. Profound darkness embraced us all. Wrapped in its cloak we listened to the Maori's story with that pleasant feeling of dread which always seizes even sceptical minds when they hear a ghostly tale in a ghostly hour.

Suddenly a tall white figure stood before us. This spirit, or man, wore a coat reaching to his knees, a hat wrapped in a long white scarf, and long white hair. In short, he was white all over. Our guide fell page 119 to the ground with a fearful moan. The apparition alarmed us too. We felt as though an electric current had passed through our bodies.

‘You were so engrossed in your story that an enemy detachment might have approached within two paces of your camp without your knowing it,’ cried the spirit gaily in excellent English.

Guessing that we had met a European traveller and not a goblin left here by the Maoris we added some wood to the fire and in its faint light saw a frail old man in a long linen smock of clerical cut.

Our guide announced that this was the Reverend Mr MacCulloch.

‘We are very glad to meet you, sir,’ said my companion.

‘We have been camping here for the last two days because our bullocks are lost in this rough country and we can't find their tracks,’ said our visitor.

‘Will you sup with us?’ we asked. ‘You must be tired and hungry after searching for your beasts all day.’

‘I am. Thanks for the invitation.’ So saying, the old man fell to without standing on ceremony. Judging by his initial vigour, his advanced age had deprived him of none of his skill at gnawing hard biscuits or munching fish, and a long stay in the colonies had made him forget the silly European habit of restraining one's appetite when invited to share a meal with others.

His trouble was an everyday occurrence in colonial life. Goods and families are transported by bullock cart, often on very poor roads, or, more often still, without them. One has continually to come to a halt and fell trees or shift fallen trunks or boulders before the cart can proceed. Thus one covers two or three Polish miles in a day, and passengers and beasts alike are worn out. The crafty bullocks take their own reward for their hard work by periodically escaping and they so confuse their tracks that often twenty-four hours elapse before they are recovered. Sometimes they cross a wide river or move to places where large herds have previously grazed. Their tracks, normally a printed book on the grass or sand easily deciphered by the natives, frequently become illegible, and whole weeks may be spent in fruitless search. Sometimes a cart thus rendered useless is abandoned in the middle of nowhere until its owner can buy or borrow a team.

Mr MacCulloch, a Scot by origin, speech, and sense of humour, was undergoing this trial for perhaps the one hundredth time in his life. He treated the matter lightly, although it had already taken him eight days to cover a distance from the mission which was usually a three days' march.

Our guide, an old friend of the minister, clearly showed the attach- page 120 ment he felt for him. We concluded that the old man, who had lived in New Zealand for thirty years, knew how to win the confidence of the natives, despite his thundering strictures against their trade in smoked heads.

‘I envy you your exceptional friendship with the Maoris,’ I said to him.

‘Indeed, it is a blessing of God. Providence has taken care of me in every way since I came to New Zealand. The tribes round our mission formally accepted my teachings, and their moral way of life proves their real understanding. My farmstock has multiplied like the herds of Jacob. I have brought up a healthy and numerous family. We suffered some misfortunes of course, but these are all forgotten. The human mind retains the bright pictures much longer than the dark ones. Once our house was burnt down. For some years we had to keep our boat in readiness for a flight across the lake; and once we had to abandon the settlement for several years while the Maoris, dazzled by the acquisition of their first firearms, amused themselves by exterminating their brothers—diminishing further their already small numbers, striking friend and foe alike, and indulging in their horrible orgies. All this is over. We are alive and well, and though there is still occasional blood-letting in the North Island, I don't doubt that in the end order and prosperity will prevail. Our part of the Island has not been affected by the war. In our secluded spot everything is calm and peaceful. Pakehas sit at the same table as Maoris, Catholics and Protestants alike.’

O poor virtuous man. Did you have any inkling of your own end when you painted this blissful picture of conditions in the Island?

‘Our most serious calamities nowadays,’ he added, ‘are of the kind which has kept me here for the last two days. I've succeeded in improving the Maoris but I've failed with the bullocks. This time, it's more than usually irritating because I am taking my newly-wed daughter and son-in-law to Wanganui. She recently returned from college in Sydney, and he came straight from his well-to-do Scots home. His ardent faith brought him here as a missionary. They met on the steamer between Sydney and Auckland. After a short courtship they married, and this is their honeymoon. It's somewhat trying for these delicate and rather fastidious people to have to spend it on a rough cart in the middle of a wilderness. Yet perhaps this initial inconvenience will do them good. They are on the eve of sailing to the Pacific islands where they intend to live the rest of their lives in extremely primitive surroundings.’

This brief account summarized whole volumes of the strange page 121 destinies and lives endured by many an expatriate family, often cultured and well-to-do. Such people, thanks to their Anglo-Saxon inclinations to colonize and their firm intention of improving their lot, live under the harshest and most alien conditions. I have myself met a son of Charles Dickens, who was rearing flocks of sheep in Australia.

Before we went to sleep I agreed to help the old missionary search for his bullocks, and volunteered also to take charge of the cart in which the young couple were travelling, in place of the drover, who had proved a no-good, lazy drunkard, and who, moreover, as the old man put it, ‘swore even more than the average colonial drover’. The missionary himself drove the first cart, which made my job easy, for the bullocks of the rear team followed the team in front. He would pay me four pounds for the two days' service, and a bonus for each day wasted in looking for the beasts. My companion was allowed to stay with us, which I did not consider any great favour since colonial drovers will ask any vagabond to accompany them, if only for his company at the night fire. It is difficult to pass by such a fire or to follow a bullock train creaking slowly through the forest without receiving a kind invitation to a ‘hunk of cake and a mug of tea’. Often one has to humour the drover by staying with him until the end of his journey.

The next day our old Maori friend found the lost bullocks with no trouble at all. We drove them to the missionary's encampment and harnessed all the animals to the wagons. From the first I discovered that there was more to controlling a team of bullocks than I had supposed. To begin with I had to learn their names, and I diligently wrote them down on a scrap of paper. Then I gently asked them to stand in two rows beside a hastily constructed fence. This fence kept them in line on one side; the son-in-law stood on the other and cracked a long whip to persuade them to stay in their places. Dressing them in heavy wooden yokes and cumbersome iron hoops, the main items of their harness, was even more difficult. Every time the iron ring slipped off the neck of the bullock I was holding by the horn, he thought I was unharnessing him. Jerking the horn from my hand, he would gracefully kick out and gallop away, an action immediately imitated by the rest of the team. I had moreover to beware of their hind hooves, for they kicked without the least warning, and unerrirgly caught me in the chest or the stomach. Once they were harnessed, I mixed up their names and calls; and I had no idea how to use the long whip, with which a really good drover can draw blood even from the lead pair as he walks along beside the cart. The intelligent page 122 animals paid no more attention to my strokes than if they had been fly stings. I had to run up and down prodding the lazy creatures—Jazy they most certainly were—and whipping them constantly. If it had a beneficial effect on the bullocks it had a detrimental effect on me. Before they had travelled a mile I had covered three. I was not surprised to hear that drovers were paid two or three pounds a week for this work, nor that my predecessor had cursed so frightfully.

I had learnt in conversation with him that it was chiefly on account of the young lady's complaints that he had been dismissed. The old man had promised him a five pounds bonus if the pious young people reached Wanganui safely without too great an exposure to his blasphemous exhortations. Everything went smoothly through the passes of Mount Tongariro until the moment when one of the carts stuck fast in a swamp near the basalt city which I have already described. In vain did they harness both teams to the carts. Ten pairs of bullocks had not the least intention of shifting it. The missionary, his son-in-law, the young lady, and the drover wore out two whips, a bundle of sticks, and their polite vocabulary—to no purpose at all. At last, the drover lost patience, doffed his hat, scratched his head, and gently asked:

‘Ma'am, if you'll only let me tell these devilish bullocks to go to … hell this very minute, they will start like a shot.’

‘But, John,’ explained the virtuous young person, ‘how can you bear to use such unholy expressions?’

‘If I'm not allowed to tell these buggers what I think of them, you can do the job yourself. Here's my whip—you can drive the bullocks without me!’

The outcome of this scene was his dismissal. His sceptre, the whip, fell to me, with untoward consequences. It got entangled in my hands and smacked my eyes every time I aimed it at the wretched animals. Soon I was cursing them myself. The minister forgave my lack of delicacy, partly from understanding my difficulties, and partly because he couldn't catch up with the dismissed drover to dismiss his dismissal and persuade him to take up his old post to which I had so inadequately succeeded.

Even the missionary did not always behave like a proper clergyman in the presence of his well brought up daughter. Although he did not swear or use unparliamentary language, he often fumed mightily, shouted at the bullocks, and struck them as hard as his declining vigour would allow. Anyone who feels inclined to blame him should try driving five pairs of these awkward animals on a bad road.

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Following the old man's lead I covered more than three-quarters of the distance, assisted by the German, the son-in-law, and even sometimes by the pretty young lady herself. The minister and my friend and I slept in the leading cart, leaving the second to serve as a marital bed for the young couple. The carts were empty. On their return journey they would be loaded with supplies for the mission. By then the newly-weds would have embarked on a small sailing boat for Wellington, where the mission bark Williams was waiting to take them to the Pacific islands.

On the fourth day we met with an accident. One wheel of my poorly driven cart slid into a pot-hole, so clumsily that the cart tipped upside down, and its three passengers found themselves trapped. They were not much hurt to judge from their lusty shouts, but they were as closely confined as in a coffin. The heavy superstructure was six feet wide, eleven long, and two in height—luckily enough, for there was thus room for all of them.

My companion, who sometimes took the old missionary's place as drover to allow him to travel with his children, was partly responsible for the mishap, for he had allowed his team to move too near the pot-hole. He was able to pass it, but I did not have the strength to prevent my team from following the preceding vehicle or to make them avoid the dangerous spot. My foolish attempts to draw the bullocks back from the hole merely drove them closer to it. At the precise moment when Charles turned to me to boast over his cleverness in missing the hole, my vehicle began to tilt. A resounding crash followed, and then profound silence. I spun round and saw two enormous wheels projecting above the cart and the bullocks beside it, as motionless as if they had been struck by lightning. The holy family quite disappeared. We rushed to the upturned wagon and endeavoured to lift it with our bare hands—to no avail. St Christopher himself could not have lifted that contraption of solid deal boards and heavy iron. Charles was soon out of breath. He sat down beside the cart rubbing his forehead in dumb despair. I, no less crestfallen, walked aimlessly round the hole, quite unable to utter a word. Suddenly a well-known voice shouted through a chink between the cart and the ground:

‘Go and fetch the chain belonging to the harness on the first cart and set the bullocks free. Hurry, otherwise we'll be smothered!’

I set about the task nervously. The control of so many pairs of bullocks was a new problem to me. My companion was no help at all. As soon as he tried to assist me, a bullock kicked him so soundly page 124 that to the end of the battle he had to stay in sick-quarters. That is, he sat on a rock and groaned.

I unharnessed the bullocks and detached the chains linking their yokes. These were so heavy that I could carry only two of them at a time to the wrecked wagon. At last I had deposited all four on its body.

‘Join two of them together and attach them to the right wheel and the other pair to the left,’ said the voice from under the cart when I reported what I had done.

‘Everything is ready, sir!’ I shouted, after I had joined the chains as well as I could.

‘Unharness the bullocks!’

‘Is that you, Mr MacCulloch?’

‘Yes,’

‘Are you all alive?’

‘Yes, we are all alive, though bruised no end. My daughter may be more seriously injured. She has fainted. There's not much room in here, and we're stifling. Unharness the bullocks!’

‘What for?’

‘Oh go to …’ he stopped suddenly. ‘Don't you see, you fool, that if the bullocks moved, the cart would crush us to death?’

I unharnessed the team in an instant by removing an iron ring on which the shafts rested and to which a chain was attached to the leading pair.

‘The bullocks are free, sir.’

‘Is everything firmly fixed?’

‘I think so.’

‘Take the bundle of ropes from the first cart. If you lift this cart and something goes wrong it will make an omelette out of us. Fasten the chains to the wheels with the ropes and strengthen the hooks with them too.’

My experience at sea, where one is for ever tying or untying knots, made this an easy task. I fixed everything so well that even a thousand bullocks could not have upset my handiwork.

‘Have you finished?’ queried the voice, sounding like the Judgment trump.

‘I have.’

‘Have you done the job properly? If anything broke, there'd be three squashed bodies for the coroner to inspect. Check everything again …. Why are you so slow, you donkey? We'll soon suffocate …’

‘Everything's all right.’

page 125

‘Take the four leading pairs of bullocks and harness them to the chains on the wheels.’

This job was not so easy. The stubborn and stupid beasts tangled the chains, or would move just as I strengthened the hooks, undoing all my work. At last I tied a Gordian knot which held them still.

‘Hurry up before it's too late! My daughter has regained consciousness. There's nothing wrong with her, but she may faint again in this foul air if you don't move more speedily.’

‘My dear sir, have patience. My hands are all swollen from the chains.’

“Blast your hands! Where's the Dutchman?” (He meant the German.) ‘Why doesn't he help you?’

‘A bullock kicked him. He's lying on the ground groaning.’

‘He's a yellow so-and-so! May he go to …’ he stopped as though changing his mind and started again: ‘Put the bullocks in two straight lines, hit them one and all with your whip and shout “Whoa!” all the time, to make them stand still in spite of your whipping.’

I walloped them and shouted until I almost went out of my mind.

‘I've beaten them black and blue, sir.’

‘Are they standing straight?’

‘As straight as candles.’

“Whip them again: call each of them by their name: and then shout “Woop!” to make them go.”

Taking out the scrap of paper on which I had written the names of my bullocks and moving my finger down the list, I thundered out all eight names, starting with Baldy and ending with Shorty. Then I shouted ‘Woop!’ The make-do chain straightened a little, but the cart did not budge, for bullocks which pull well on a hard track are doubtful when it comes to struggling across the road on the grass.

‘They don't want to pull.’

‘I'd wallop you with a whip if I could! Yell and hit them, and then shout “Woop!”’

‘Upon my word sir, I've exhausted all my strength and my decent vocabulary.’

‘Forget the decencies. Come and listen carefully and then repeat what I tell you to the bullocks—but with enough force to make the mountains tremble!’

And he poured into my ear a litany of fanciful imprecations, learnt word for word from the dismissed drover.

‘That's the only language these beasts understand,’ said the voice from beneath the cart as he finished reciting these choice expressions, page 126 thus excusing his immodesty. ‘It seems that nothing else will free us alive from this predicament.’

I roared out the lesson passed on to us by their first master. The bullocks shook at my new command. Chain links had begun to tauten and screech even before I raised my whip. At my call of ‘Woop!’ they jumped headlong and lifted the cart a good few feet. I propped it up with a chock I had ready but it was unnecessary. The trapped family slipped from beneath it with the speed of lightning. Even the young lady did not swoon again until she was some distance from the cart, which slowly turned right way up.

Apart from scratches and bruises they were uninjured. We had attended to the damage and were once more ready to depart when we were surprised by a rider some fifty years old.

‘Have you had an accident?’ he asked.

‘One can't avoid them,’ said the missionary, gently. ‘And it was really my fault, because I left my post. But thanks be to the Lord, we escaped almost unruffled.’

‘Oh, it's the Reverend MacCulloch! Greetings!’

‘Well, Mr Williams!’ they all exclaimed, civilly enough, but without any enthusiasm. Their tone reminded me of the way one greets a bothersome creditor.

They all shook his hand however. Mr Williams inquired about the cause of the accident and its consequences. I gave him a full account, but when I came to repeating the actual words which had made the bullocks move, the missionary blushed like a young girl. I understood the blushes, and somewhat modified the litany. Williams guessed what I had suppressed and laughed heartily.

‘My dear sir, when the time comes to marry off my daughter I will ask you to officiate at the ceremony—and I'll pay you a double fee, even if we have a hundred other clergymen in the neighbourhood. We settlers like a clergyman who knows how to master the bullocks in language they understand.’

‘This is a stupid fellow,’ muttered the missionary in my ear. ‘His whole life has been a long string of scandals. It is hard to shake him off, because he enjoys a good reputation as a businessman, and is the oldest settler in the district. Despite his uncouth appearance, he could buy up many well-to-do merchants.’

Out of sheer consideration to the missionary, who did not want me to tell Mr Williams his borrowed apostrophe to the bullocks, I shall not repeat the words to my gentle readers. My erstwhile companion can no longer remember them, and the silent forest will not betray the secret.